Is it better to marry outside or in the US for bringing a spouse here?

[Solid6ix 0]

I've had an established relationship with a girl from Australia for a few years now, back and forth visits.
I know we're going to marry, I just want to know if it's better to marry in the US or if it matters if we get married in Australia.
The goal is to get her US citizenship.

[Edward and Jaycel 2,244]

8 minutes ago, Solid6ix said:

I've had an established relationship with a girl from Australia for a few years now, back and forth visits.
I know we're going to marry, I just want to know if it's better to marry in the US or if it matters if we get married in Australia.
The goal is to get her US citizenship.

 

As long as the marriage is legal in the jurisdiction in which it takes place, USCIS will accept it. The only caveat is if the marriage certificate is in a language other than English, you have to have it translated. (Not applicable obviously if you get married here in the US or in Australia )

Edited 22 hours ago by Edward and Jaycel

[Dashinka 26,194]

Another option is a Utah Zoom wedding, and file the I130 as soon as you meet the requirements of meeting either during or after the ceremony.

 

Good Luck!

[JeanneAdil 7,286]

Marry there and petition the spouse visa / the 3 year for citizenship starts the day she enters

 

If you do K1 to marry here ,  you must go thru the process for the green card and the 3 years for citizenship starts with the date on the green card 

that can be a long wait to AOS after marriage here

 

marriage there you can file the I 130 online as soon as u have the marriage certificate / make sure u check the list of needed document and u have them all to file the petition (like copy of your birth certificate if u do it from Australia)

[Ontarkie 15,035]

If you don't have to plan on family being there. Pick the easiest and fastest place to get married. There's enough time spent waiting in this process. So skip some wait time when you can. 

[wildbug100420 339]

2 hours ago, Solid6ix said:

I've had an established relationship with a girl from Australia for a few years now, back and forth visits.
I know we're going to marry, I just want to know if it's better to marry in the US or if it matters if we get married in Australia.
The goal is to get her US citizenship.

Your last sentence sounds like you are doing this solely for an immigration benefit. 

[pushbrk 13,934]

1 hour ago, wildbug100420 said:

Your last sentence sounds like you are doing this solely for an immigration benefit. 

Doesn't sound that way to me at all. It's an established relationship.  It just sounds to me like the OP doesn't understand she needs three years of Lawful Permanent Resident Status before Citizenship is a possibility.  Now he does.

[OldUser 10,723]

5 hours ago, wildbug100420 said:

Your last sentence sounds like you are doing this solely for an immigration benefit. 

Agreed, when I married and  adjusted my status the goal was to live together as a family and my significant other would not want to live anywhere else other than the US. The goal wasn't getting citizenship. Frankly, if there wasn't a big change in immigration I might have remained LPR due to already strong citizenship I have.

 

The way OP said it definitely sounded off... I'm sure if OP's gf wasn't from Australia, but from Pakistan or Nigeria saying the same, everybody would smell fraud. Double standards IMHO.

If OP's gf said something like that in consular interview or during adjustment of status interview, they're almost guaranteed a denial, like 99.9%

 

Hopefully, the intentions are pure and it's just not well thought through question.

To the question: you can marry in Australia, you can marry in the US or you can marry anywhere else as long as it's legal. It may depend on where the family from both sides can travel to celebrate. It may depend on how easy it is to get paperwork in the future (certified copies of marriage certificate etc). 

 

 

Edited 14 hours ago by OldUser

[Sam Burns 215]

Get married where and when it’s most convenient to you and your plans 

[bakphx1 805]

We married in Iceland-a third country all together.  It was not an issue. A marriage certificate is a marriage certificate.

[S2N 528]

4 hours ago, OldUser said:

Agreed, when I married and  adjusted my status the goal was to live together as a family and my significant other would not want to live anywhere else other than the US. The goal wasn't getting citizenship. Frankly, if there wasn't a big change in immigration I might have remained LPR due to already strong citizenship I have.

 

The way OP said it definitely sounded off... I'm sure if OP's gf wasn't from Australia, but from Pakistan or Nigeria saying the same, everybody would smell fraud. Double standards IMHO.

If OP's gf said something like that in consular interview or during adjustment of status interview, they're almost guaranteed a denial, like 99.9%

 

Hopefully, the intentions are pure and it's just not well thought through question.

To the question: you can marry in Australia, you can marry in the US or you can marry anywhere else as long as it's legal. It may depend on where the family from both sides can travel to celebrate. It may depend on how easy it is to get paperwork in the future (certified copies of marriage certificate etc). 

 

 

I think we sometimes have a tendency on these forums to read bad intent where there is none. I get why a lot of the veterans read it that way, but there are plenty of reasons one could phrase it that way. I know a guy with a foreign husband who has an active clearance. In those circumstances saying “the goal is eventually to obtain citizenship” would be what the government wants to hear 😂 That’s a bit of an extreme case, but you get my point. Many people in relationships do immigrate with the intent of getting citizenship because the citizenship will be useful later. In our case it’s one of the goals because it’ll eventually allow the sponsorship of my husband’s mother, which will help us in establishing a family here. There’s nothing suspicious about entering the process knowing the desired outcome.

 

12 hours ago, Solid6ix said:

I've had an established relationship with a girl from Australia for a few years now, back and forth visits.
I know we're going to marry, I just want to know if it's better to marry in the US or if it matters if we get married in Australia.
The goal is to get her US citizenship.

OP — something to look into is what the paperwork is like in Australia for marriages; we did ours here on ESTA because in Chile there’s a three week mandatory waiting period after applying for a marriage license together, and I didn’t have the time to camp out in South America for 3 weeks. Australia won’t have the problem of not being in English and needing a translation, but there might be other regulatory things that you’d need to consider when choosing the venue.

[Scandi 4,346]

For us it was easier getting married in the US so we could get a US marriage certificate. In my home country the marriage "certificate" you receive at your wedding isn't legally binding and therefore doesn't mean anything, people just keep it as a memory type thing of their wedding day. We also don't have birth certificates.

The legal documents are ordered from the Swedish "population register" (you choose the Long English version when you place an order) and is only an extract from their register with all your info on it.
This has proven to be a bit of a headache for some people as USCIS doesn't understand that this is the only form of "birth certificate" and "marriage certificate" we have, there has been countless of RFEs because of this.

I luckily never had an issue with the "birth certificate" part, but I'm glad I had a US marriage certificate so there was one less thing they could get hung up on. 

[S2N 528]

2 minutes ago, Scandi said:

The legal documents are ordered from the Swedish "population register" (you choose the Long English version when you place an order) and is only an extract from their register with all your info on it.
This has proven to be a bit of a headache for some people as USCIS doesn't understand that this is the only form of "birth certificate" and "marriage certificate" we have, there has been countless of RFEs because of this.

I luckily never had an issue with the "birth certificate" part, but I'm glad I had a US marriage certificate so there was one less thing they could get hung up on. 

Sweden isn’t the only country where getting the correct legal document or process can be a headache. One of the benefits of the U.S. is the process is usually very straightforward. Why it’s worth looking up the process in both countries before making any decisions, imo.

[Dashinka 26,194]

9 hours ago, OldUser said:

Agreed, when I married and  adjusted my status the goal was to live together as a family and my significant other would not want to live anywhere else other than the US. The goal wasn't getting citizenship. Frankly, if there wasn't a big change in immigration I might have remained LPR due to already strong citizenship I have.

 

The way OP said it definitely sounded off... I'm sure if OP's gf wasn't from Australia, but from Pakistan or Nigeria saying the same, everybody would smell fraud. Double standards IMHO.

If OP's gf said something like that in consular interview or during adjustment of status interview, they're almost guaranteed a denial, like 99.9%

 

Hopefully, the intentions are pure and it's just not well thought through question.

To the question: you can marry in Australia, you can marry in the US or you can marry anywhere else as long as it's legal. It may depend on where the family from both sides can travel to celebrate. It may depend on how easy it is to get paperwork in the future (certified copies of marriage certificate etc). 

 

 

I respectfully disagree.  My wife and I were thinking about her eventually gaining US citizenship even back when we were going through the K1 process.  There was nothing nefarious about it, it was all about our desire to travel after we began our lives together and a US passport was much more advantageous than a Russian passport.  That being said, who knows what the OP meant by the comment, maybe they are thinking long-term about living somewhere other than the US, or splitting their time between two countries (Australia and the Northern US would be perfect for snowbirds) and don't want to deal with REPs or other LPR maintenance stuff.  There is nothing wrong with planning ahead when starting an immigration journey, in fact it should be encouraged to learn everything they can about the entire process.

 

To the OP, as other's have responded, get married wherever you want, even coming to the US to get married is an option using ESTA with your Australian spouse returning for the process to play out.

 

Good Luck!